Enter The Unknown
by Zaradi
Summary: Enter the story of five young adults. Five players of a video game called "League of Legends" who all want to turn their passions into a career. Enter the story of five young adults, all with different backgrounds and life stories, each with their unique strengths and struggles. Enter Team Unknown, and enter the unknown territory of professional gaming.
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys! Welcome to Enter the Unknown! Hope you enjoy the story!**

 **There's just a few things I think need to be explained beforehand. First of all, I don't own League or anything league related, all of it's really owned by Riot, etc. etc. Please don't sue me T_T**

 **Secondly, this series will feature mature concepts, ideas, and language throughout the story. If this is not something you're comfortable reading these things in a story, then this story probably isn't for you.**

 **Thirdly, I want to point out that this series isn't your typical series for this site. There are no champions as characters and the story takes place in the real world rather than Runeterra. I love my champ ships as much as the next person, but I wanted to do something original rather than following characters already created. If this is not your thing, I certainly understand.**

 **And finally, if you have any suggestions for improvement or constructive criticisms of my writing, feel free to leave a review or send me a PM. I'd hardly call myself a great writer, and although I do try to create the best stories that I can, I'm nowhere near perfect, (or even good for that matter .-.), so any advice is greatly appreciated!**

 **Aaand, I'll shut up now! Enjoy the story!**

 **\- Zaradi**

* * *

 _Bzzzzt._

A faint sound at the edge of Tim's subconscious began to stir him from his slumber. The man rolled over, his usual state of tossing and turning to stay in denial that he was waking up, before returning to the rhythmic breathing that was his sleep state.

 _Bzzzzt._

Again. A soft groan came from his lips, a pleading sound for more sleep, before he finally turned over and grabbed for the buzzing device to see what it wanted from him at the ungodly hour of ten in the morning on his day off.

 _Bzzzzt._

An incoming call. From Matt.

Usually, Tim categorically rejected incoming calls on his day off, particularly when he was sleeping. His days off were his personal days, days where he could have a haven from the stupidity of the outside world and usually only do exactly what he wanted to do with his life (usually revolving around some video game or another). The outside world tended to just distract him from what made him happy, and so calls were usually met with a swift rejection.

But Matt was different, especially now. Tim picked up the call.

"Matt, how are things?"

"I'm doing fine. Just trying to settle up on a few things. How about you?"

Tim chuckled dryly. "Well it's ten am, so you should know how I'm doing."

The chuckle was echoed from Matt. "Yeah, sorry to wake you from your hibernation. But there's something we really need to talk about. How quickly can you get over to my apartment?"

Tim blinked a little before moving the phone off of his ear to look at the time. "I don't know, how quickly do I need to be there?"

"You're really going to want to hear this."

Tim groaned. He really didn't want to have to run around different places on his day off. "I'll get over there in a half hour."

Matt grunted something that resembled an 'okay' before the call ended.

Tim blinked a few times, unsure of what just happened. Half of his body told him that he should just blow it off and fall back asleep. It certainly sounded a lot more appealing than getting up on his day off and driving down the highway to visit his grieving friend.

But that's what friends were for.

* * *

"Is that all I need to do?" Matt asked into his phone, looking out the window of his apartment from his desk chair. It was unfortunate that he had to deal with a little bit of business when he was expecting a friend over any minute now, but life was rather unfortunate at the current moment for him, so he didn't really expect much less.

Matt nodded to the person speaking on the other end of the phone. "Fair enough. I'll get the paperwork filled out to shift primary control of the company over to you so that you can act in my father's stead. If there are any major executive decisions that need to be made that require me to sign some sort of documentation, it can just be e-mailed to me and I'll send it back to you." Matt replied into the phone, standing up and pacing around his apartment, stopping his pacing in front of a mirror.

Matt still wasn't sure what he saw whenever he looked into the mirror. Physically, of course, what was there was obvious for the twenty-two year old man: brown hair cut short and kept clean, hazel eyes, a clean-shaven face, above average height and build, and skin too dark to consider him pale, but also too fair to really consider him tanned. Nothing super extraordinary about him. His demeanor followed suit. His shoulders were broad and straight, holding himself up straight and composed, outwardly confident of himself.

Was this actually how he felt about himself, or was this just what his dad had drilled into him all those nights of "how to present yourself" lessons? He wasn't sure.

A quick rap of knuckles against his door interrupted his train of thought. "I have to go. If there's anything else you need from me you can e-mail me. And thank you again for all your help."

Matt hung up on the call and left his phone on his desk while he got up to go answer the door. His hand rested on the doorknob before a thought crept into his mind, a sly grin matching the thought.

"Matt, I can hear you on the other side of the door. Just open it already." came Tim's annoyed voice to stop any of Matt's scheming.

"Sheesh, sheesh, so cranky." Matt replied casually as he opened the door to be face-to-face with his old friend.

In all reality, he and Tim weren't that different of people. Physically, they had a lot of similarities. Short brown hair, light brown eyes with a face slightly rounder than Matt's. The two were similar in height and build, Tim being maybe an inch shorter than Matt, despite being a year old. If you passed the two of them walking together in a mall or shopping center, you could've thought they were brothers from a glance.

Tim didn't seem amused by the causality of the reply, but didn't seem too annoyed with it either. "If anyone else asked me what you asked me at this time, they'd have received a swift 'fuck off'. You should be honored."

Matt nodded, already being well acquainted with Tim's usual habits. "I'm glad you haven't killed me yet. Maybe there's hope for this visit after all." Matt replied simply, walking further into the room, back towards his desk, and gestured for Tim to sit down. "Coffee? Water?"

Tim shook his head, also electing to stand. "I'm fine, thanks. How are you doing, by the way? Are all the affairs being handled for your dad?"

Matt nodded, remembering the business call he had been on previously. "Yes, most of the business is just being signed over to the board of directors. I'm still being kept as honorary CEO, and receiving the salary and benefits associated with the position, but the board will effectively be running the company in my stead, and they've received a big salary raise to compensate. Other than that most everything has already been taken care of in terms of inheritance. That's actually partially what I wanted to talk to you about."

Tim's eyebrow was raised. Matt could tell that he had his attention. "Oh?" Tim asked, electing to lean against the wall, a crook forming in his knee. "Go on."

Matt sat back down in his office chair, leaning back a little to get comfortable before he started. "As you're perfectly aware, my parents died two weeks ago. Their combined life insurance payouts plus the inheritance gave me a considerable flat sum of cash. I've deposited the vast majority of it away in various savings accounts and investment programs, and supplemented with the income I'll receive from my father's corporation, I can effectively live as free of a life as I so desire without having to work a day more than I want to without ever worrying about not having the money to live the life I want to. In short, I'm freaking loaded now."

Tim chuckled a little at the summary. "Money's all well and good, but it's not super useful if you don't have a use for it. What are you planning to do with it?"

"Oh I have a plan. And the plan is what I really wanted to talk with you about." Matt said, receiving a nod from Tim to continue. "You know what my true passion is. You've played games with me. You've seen me watching games and looking over old VODs of teams playing against each other. I love League and the game and the competitive scene. I want to be a part of it."

"Well now you have all the free time in the world to practice and get on a team." Tim pointed out. Matt smiled, but shook his head.

"I could, but I'd rather make a team than try to join an already existing one." Matt said simply.

Tim's eyebrow raised again. "You're barely Gold elo, ranking wise. No amateur or pro player is going to join a team you're trying to form."

"If I'm trying to play on it, you're absolutely right. But if I'm just funding and managing the team, though…"

"Okay, then maybe you could find some people who would be interest-" Tim started to say, but then stopped, blinking in surprise. Matt could tell he was starting to connect the dots. "You're not going to ask me what I think you're going to ask me, right?"

"Oh I am. I want you on it."

Tim shook his head, a look of disbelief on his face as he abandoned his wall perch and walked past Matt to stand in front of the window, looking out of the apartment to the view beyond. "Come on, man, you know I already gave up on making it as a pro player. The last team I was on just wasn't a real team. Besides, I have a real job now."

"But you know what the problems were!" Matt argued back, turning around to face his disbelieving friend. "You understand the communication problems that existed on the team. You understand the social divides that were between you and your teammates. You can prevent those from happening here! And you can't seriously tell me that you prefer your desk job selling phone coverage to people is more appealing than playing video games for a living."

For a while, Tim stood there, silently contemplating. It was hard for Matt to tell what was going through his head from behind him, but he could only hope that his friend was considering accepting it. Minutes stretched out, all silence, all unmoving.

"I want full control over who joins the team." Tim finally said after nearly seven minutes of not saying anything.

"All yours."

"I want a gaming house in southern California. Fully furnished with gaming rigs for all of us to play on together."

"Done. It'll take a while to set that up, but I can get immediate temporary arrangements for now if needed."

Tim nodded. "I want to be able to set the player's initial salaries and be able to offer fully paid for transportation to the house from wherever they're currently at."

"I can agree with that."

Silence for another moment. "Damn, you really do want to do this."

Matt nodded simply. "I really do. Not only to fulfill your dream of making it to the pro scene, but to fulfill mine as well."

A few more minutes of silence. Matt bit his bottom lip in nervousness. He was so close to getting him to agree to it.

Then, a small sigh came from Tim. Matt grinned. He had heard that sigh so many times before. He had won.

"Alright. I'll do it."

Matt smiled, nodding and making a mental note to get things prepared for a move to California. "Great! I can start doing initial scouting for potential recruits in the challenger scene if you want."

Tim shook his head, walking to the door. "No need. I already have people in mind to ask. I'll come back to you with a complete roster when I have it." He stated finally before opening the door to Matt's apartment and leaving.

Matt would've been surprised by the abrupt exit, but that was just Tim. He just expected it at this point. Matt turned in his chair to face his computer, his fingers flying to the keyboard to dance along the keys. He had a lot of work to do now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for reading! ^_^ Hope you've enjoyed the series so far!**

 **Also, this chapter, and probably more chapters in the future, will have parts of dialogue revolving around chat-based conversation. To distinguish normal conversation from chat conversation, there's three things you can look for: one, a lack of grammar (lol…). Two, I'll use italics for everything said in chat. And three, you'll see a username with a colon in front of all the chat to denote who's saying what. Hope that clears up some things!**

 **Again, if you have any advice or constructive criticism for me, feel free to drop a review and let me know so I can continue to improve and put out better stuff for you guys to read! Anyway, I'll shut up now. Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

Taishi: _so are we all ready?_

Snow: _ready_

tYrant: _r_

Rampage: _rdy_

Anomalii: _Ready._

* * *

Matt stared blankly at the piece of paper handed to him by Tim. He was utterly baffled by the list of names written on the list. "You can't be serious right now."

Tim looked at him with a confused look in his eye. Was there something about these names that Matt wasn't aware of? "What's wrong with these?" Tim asked curiously.

Matt shook the list he held in his hand and set it down on his desk. "Your proposed roster is literally full of people no one's ever really heard of. Literally out of all the scouting I did for people to potentially have on a team, none of these names ever crossed my mind as people I'd field. It's literally the biggest band of misfits I could possibly imagine."

Tim just gestured his hands, sort of in a 'what can you do about it?' kind of manner. "Do you have issues with any of these players? I don't see what's wrong with any of them."

Matt shrugged. "A few things I suppose. For one, is Anthony "Rampage" Jones even eligible to play? Last I heard he was banned from playing the game due to an extreme amount of toxicity."

Tim nodded. "I checked with him and I looked it up. He was unbanned a few months ago. He's still kicking off the rust from not having played the game for a year, but he's already back at around low masters and climbing. He should be around the form he was in before being banned relatively soon."

Matt could only shrug in response to it. "Speaking of eligibility, what about Noah "Anomalii" Starks? Isn't he still in high school? Is he even old enough to compete on a roster?"

Tim shrugged in response to that question. "Not for the professional scene, no. But we won't be immediately qualifying, at least I don't _think_ we'll be immediately qualifying. So until then we can practice and grow as a team while we wait for him to be eligible and compete in all the amateur tournaments and leagues that don't have age restrictions. Besides, I've talked to him about what he's going to do about school and he said he could always test out of his final few years whenever he wanted to, so we don't even have to worry about him splitting time between practice and study."

Matt nodded, making a note on the list. "And Jae-sup "tYrant" Hyun? Didn't he flunk out of a professional team after immigrating here? And doesn't he only speak Korean?"

Tim simply just nodded in response. "They didn't give him an honest shot, though. He has a lot more potential than they gave him credit for. He was a wrong fit for the pro team he was asked to try out for, I agree there, but he's still a fantastic player."

Matt didn't like the response. "That still only covers half the problem. You speak different languages. That's kind of a barrier in amateur teams."

But Matt could already tell that Tim disagreed, and had thought about this. "First off, I've talked with Noah and he actually fluently speaks Korean, so we have someone on the team who can translate already. Secondly, there's not actually that much english to learn in terms of communicating effectively in League, and most of it is something he is going to already know by having played the game at a high level. And if all else fails, top lane is one of the lanes with the lowest requirement for communication, so even if it provides us with initial difficulties until his english improves, it won't be a detriment that can't be overcome."

Matt nods, processing the information as he stares down the last name. "And Amanda "Snow" Lain? I'm not sure I understand your thought process here."

"What's not to understand? Have you look at the challenger ladder lately?" Tim asked, confused. "She has three accounts in the top twenty of challenger. Her understanding of macroplay and map rotations is rivaling a lot of professional junglers. With practice she could potentially be one of the best competitive junglers in the region, if not the world. Everyone just looks over her because she's a girl."

Matt couldn't really argue with that logic. The owner ultimately gave a resigned shrug to the entire list. "If you think you can make this group work together and make an effective team that can succeed and win, then I'll send out the contracts for them to look over. I just don't want to be the one to tell you that I told you so."

* * *

Taishi: _do we want to ban out elise right now?_

Rampage: _pls fck that champ_

Snow: _we don't have to. i can play elise and we have first pick_

Rampage: _shuld jst play grag. better peel n disengage and dsnt suck ass in tfs_

Snow: _gragas loses to elise early in the game though and I can get invaded on easily. not sure I like the matchup if we don't ban elise and there's not a lot that's good against elise._

Anomalii: _We should probably just ban it for now. It gives us more flexibility in jungle picks so we can play more than just pick compositions._

tYrant: _i ban elise?_

Taishi: _do you want to?_

Snow: _it's fine, we can ban it._

Taishi: _ok. ban elise_

Taishi leaned back in his chair, eyeing the picks and bans so far. He understood that it'd be a pain trying to communicate all of the initial comforts and desires in each role at the start of things, but he also knew that if everyone didn't get used to each other's specific playing styles then learning the intricacies of team play would be nearly impossible. Even the best teams had to start somewhere, and for them it would be the Ranked 5's Ladder.

Taishi: _okay what's up to first pick?_

Rampage: _vayne_

Anomalii: _I don't think it's a very smart idea to first pick a vayne. That doesn't sound safe._

Rampage: _fck u. giv me vayne n ill carry_

Snow: _he's right, we shouldn't first pick something like vayne. If we really want to play it we can pick it later in the draft._

Rampage: _watevr, im playin vayne no matter wat.  
_ Snow: _…_

Taishi: _lets just fp something like a gragas. Works well enough with anything._

tYrant: _i pick gragas for jg?_

Snow: _sure, i'll play gragas._

Tim nodded to himself, content with the jungle pick as the portrait of Gragas appeared in tYrant's champion slot. Tim watched as both Maokai and Lee Sin were locked in for the other team.

Snow: _we need lanes with early pressure or safety. lee is going to have a lot of freedom in the early game._

tYrant: _i play rumble?_

Taishi: _that...could work. you'd be vulnerable to early ganks but if we held even we'd win dragon fights._

tYrant: _i can play it. pick for me?_

Snow: _sure, i'll grab rumble. do we want to pick our midlaner now or do we want to pick something else right now?_

Rampage: _vayne_

Snow: _…_

Anomalii: _We can pick Braum here. Decent amounts of engage for the mid game dragon fights._

Taishi: _that works. I'll pick that up_

Tim moved the cursor of his mouse over to the icon of Braum, clicking on it before clicking on the "Lock In" button, the selection quote playing in the background of his mind while Snow's player slot was filled with the icon for Rumble.

Two quick lock-ins for the enemy team again - this time the champions selected were Sivir and Thresh.

Taishi: _ashe would be-_

Tim would've finished typing his sentence of a champion recommendation, but sat in stunned silence when Rampage's champion portrait lit up with the icon of Vayne, and watched it get instantly locked in.

Snow: _…_

Anomalii: _…_

tYrant: _zzz_

Rampage: _gg i carry now_

Taishi: _whatever, we can just play for midgame tfs and vayne can be late game insurance_

Anomalii: _I suppose so. Do we want an Azir here?_

Taishi: _yeah azir would work. grab that for me._

Anomalii's champion portrait lit up with with the image of Azir, turning dark as it was locked in to complete their five man roster. The final champion slot for the enemy team filled with the image of Viktor and was quickly locked in. Both teams were now complete with their five man rosters, and the team began loading into the game.

Taishi: _okay, we're going to be teamfighting a lot this game going against a sivir comp. need good vision around drag so we get best positioning. and care for early lee ganks, especially side lanes. we lose those 2v2s and 3v3s._

Snow: _should try to set up a lane swap. help vayne become relevant for the teamfights mid game._

Rampage: _we can 2v2_

Anomalii: _That...would be dangerous. Lane swapping is far safer._

Rampage: _puss come 2v2 w me_

Anomalii: _…_

Snow: _i can just sit botside for a lot of the early game if top lane plays safe. maokai and lee sin good at killing in lane._

tYrant: _i play back farm_

Tim nodded, leaning back in his chair as the game went into the main loading screen, mentally preparing himself for the matchup ahead. At least they had some kind of gameplan on how to play the game out. Could be worse.

* * *

Tim hated it when when he jinxed himself. Gameplan? What gameplan? That thing went to shit in the first few minutes of the game, and they had given up an uncontested dragon in the first eight minutes. It was all impromptu from there. Tim summoned a sand soldier in the middle lane, in front of the oncoming minion wave, letting the soldier autoattack a few times before using his Q ability to send the soldier dashing forward, clearing out the wave effortlessly.

Taishi: _drag in 1 minute. need vision_

Tim took a second to glance down at his minimap and let out a small 'Tsk' of annoyance. Bottom lane was shoved into the tower and he watched Vayne eat a boomerang to the face, chunking her of a portion of her health.

Top lane wasn't fairing much better. Rumble was in the process of being shoved under tower by the enemy Maokai, taking a bit of harass from the various forms of wave clear and the minion wave attacking him before retreating to the relative safety of his tower.

The jungle was maybe the one place that wasn't getting pushed around. Though no successful ganks had occurred yet, Gragas was able to steadily farm up a decent amount of gold.

Snow: _i'm basing now for wards and to shop. be there in time for the spawn_

Anomalii: _Same, I'm out of sightstone wards. I'll heal then be there._

Tim agreed with the general consensus, hitting the "B" button on his keyboard to start his recall animation. He was sitting on a decent amount of gold as well, and buying more items and wards to help with the vision control around the dragon pit would be vital to securing a good fight or just forcing them off of the objective entirely.

Tim finished the recall animation, porting from the mid lane he was in before to his fountain. Purchasing a few more items, along with a pink ward and a few green wards, Tim commanded his champion to return to the middle lane, which was pushing back into him. A quick sand soldier summon and using his Q ability lead to the minion wave disappearing.

Taishi: _should group. drag spawning in 20s_

A few "On the way!" pings came in reply from Gragas and Braum as wards began being placed.

Anomalii: _There's no way Lee isn't around. They want to fight as much as we do._

tYrant: _have tp_

Taishi: _we have ward coverage of river and pit. should force with tp._

Rampage: _omw clearing bot wave_

Four friendly icons began converging around the dragon pit from both sides, using the vision given to them through their ward coverage to ensure that the path they were taking was safe. Slowly, enemy icons became visible on the minimap, making the matchup a four on four.

tYrant: _mao top_

Tim nodded to himself, as the four-man squad moved further into the river, positioning at the mouth of the pit. They had swept the area well enough to know that there probably wasn't going to be very good ward positioning for their Maokai to teleport in on - they should have the advantage from forcing this.

Taishi: _we can start this and peel off if they try to engage._

Snow: _lee and I are equal level. He has better execution with q than I do, so smite fight may not be the best idea._

Taishi: _we want to teamfight anyway. just peel off and engage if they try to come in. split front line from back so vayne can free hit._

Snow pinged the dragon in response, and the four of them began to attack the dragon. The dragon dance had begun.

Slowly the enemy team began moving forward. Cautiously they would move forward a little more, a little further still, inching closer and closer to the pit, looking for a favorable position from which to contest the dragon.

Snow: _they're still too far back to engage on._

Taishi: _stay on drag. force them to come in_

The dragon dropped below half health. The dragon dropped below a quarter health.

Taishi: _finish drag then turn, they're taking forever_

Tim summoned a final soldier, letting it auto the dragon once before commanding it forward more with his Q to deal a larger spike of damage to the dragon in combination with the rest of his team's damage to try and spike the dragon down before the enemy team could get in range to smite it. The audio queue for Sivir's ultimate played through his headphones, and the enemy team, buffed with the movement speed boost from the Sivir ultimate, raced in toward the pit. An enemy ward outside of the pit popped into view, glowing with the teleport channeling animation - Maokai was incoming.

Taishi: _tp in tp in_

tYrant: _i come now_

A ward of his own team began glowing with a similar animation almost simultaneously.

The enemy Lee Sin threw out his sonic wave, striking the dragon and taking the resonating strike, flying in toward the dragon to contest in a smite battle.

Anomalii: _I'm ulting now._

Instantly Braum casts his ultimate, sending a rippling glacial fissure outwards from the dragon pit toward the incoming Lee Sin. The knockup applies, interrupting the dash and stopping the enemy jungler just outside of the pit. Gragas safely channels the W, smiting in synch with the buffed auto to secure the dragon.

Taishi: _turn now go go_

Instantly Gragas turns around and chucks out an explosive cask into the middle of the enemy team, sending the group of four flying in different directions just as the teleports finish channeling and the Maokai and Rumble arrive.

Maokai, having teleported to a ward outside of the fight, uses flash to enter the fight before using his Twisted Advance onto Tim's Azir while Rumble laid the Equalizer down on top of the Sivir and Viktor, slowing them and burning their health bars.

The Maokai didn't stay on top of the Azir for long, though. Tim activated his ultimate, sending a row of his soldiers forward and shoving the enemy top laner off of him. With an impassable barrier standing between the Azir/Vayne backline and the enemy team, they were free to rain down damage onto the enemy team without fear of returning fire.

 _An enemy has been slain!_

 _Double kill!_

In quick succession, the Viktor and Thresh fell to the onslaught of damage coming down on top of them as the enemy team began trying to disengage. The Maokai, having attempted to dive the backline, was too far forward to hope to live, however.

 _An enemy has been slain!_

Just as simple as that, Tim nodded to himself, they had picked up three kills and a dragon. Time to keep pushing it.

Taishi: _rotate mid and get the mid tower. can pressure side lanes easier afterwards and ward up their jungle_

His team followed, and the tower fell quickly between the combined might of five champions.

Tim smiled.

* * *

The game ended shortly after the chaotic first fight. With a gold lead, a teamfight composition fighting against another teamfight composition is always going to win unless they screw up massively.

Tim silently thanked whatever eSports gods were out there that it was the Ranked 5s ladder and not any serious kind of scrimming. Otherwise, they would've thrown that lead fifty times over. He didn't expect much better from their first game together, but they definitely had a lot of improving to do before they became any sort of competitive team that was ready for major tournaments.

Tim checked his phone after they got out of the post-game lobby. There was a message waiting for him to read from Matt.

 _To:_ _Tim_

 _From:_ _Matt_

" _Hey, how'd the first game go?"_

Tim chuckled a little, re-sending out the invites for a second game before quickly typing out a reply.

 _To:_ _Matt_

 _From:_ _Tim_

" _About as good as expected. We still won, at least. Got a lot of work to do."_

Tim set his phone aside again, refocusing on the new champion select in front of him as he prepared to get that work done.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys! Hope you're enjoying the chapters so far!**

 **I apologize for the slow upload speed of these. I'm a full time college student first, a high school speech and debate coach/tutor second, a League of Legends/other video games addict third, and I squeeze in time for this in whatever time slots remain. I try to get this worked on whenever I have a chance to, but just stay with me if I can't upload a new chapter every day. Big sorry ^_^**

 **And as always, if you have any kind of feedback and/or constructive criticism, feel free to PM me or drop a review. I realize I probably suck compared to a lot of great writers on this site so any kind of help I can get to improve would be greatly appreciated!**

* * *

Two weeks had passed since the first game was played by the newly formed team. Two weeks of grinding things out on the Ranked 5s ladder and facing game after game after game.

Tim remembered exactly why he hated this part of being on a team. The grinding was obnoxious. He knew that they needed the practice, and that without this practice that they would have no chance of even remotely having a feasible shot at making it to a professional level. But as of right now, it was impossible for them to have a single game without some kind of argument coming up.

And as much as Tim hated pointing fingers, a lot of it revolved around Anthony.

Putting a long story short, Tim now fully understood why Riot initially banned him for toxicity. His behavior in team communications and in game was nothing short of destructive to anyone around him, and in game the actual game when plays were happening was even worse. And the person who was receiving a lot of the flak from Rampage was his duo lane partner, Noah.

Tim cringed a little bit at the thought. The poor, poor kid was constantly berated for every mistake that he made. Every missed Thresh hook or flay, every missed Braum Q and whiffed Braum ultimate, every badly timed Janna ultimate or shield - anytime Anomalii made any kind of mistake, the floodgates were opened and down rained a torrent of insults ranging from demeaning his motor reflexes from making assumptions about his familial lineage and its similarities with various forms of feces. The poor kid never made any kind of response, never wavered in his usefulness to the team. But Tim only shuddered in the thought of what might happen when he didn't want to deal with that kind of harassment anymore.

A slight ping emanating from his computer's speakers indicated that someone had messaged him on his game client.

Snow: _duo?_

Taishi: _kk inv_

Tim accepted the duo-queue invitation that was sent to him, entering the game queue with his jungler.

Snow: _think the ranked 5s games will get any less toxic?_

Taishi: _idk. just need to keep working together. it'll get better over time_

Snow: _you used to be on a team, right? how did you resolve these kinds of problems?_

The game queue informed them that there was a game waiting their acceptance before he could explain to her the lack of teamwork and coordination that existed on his former team. Instead, he just laughed half-heartedly to himself and accepted the game being offered to him, focusing on the champion selection phase in front of him. Hopefully they could all work out these problems before it destroyed the team from the inside.

* * *

He had to run. He didn't want to know the result of what would happen to him if they caught up to him.

"C'mon, egg head! We just want to talk to you!"

Noah ignored the blatant lie and turned a corner in his school's hallways, walking as quickly down the new pathway as he could. He knew the school like the inside of his palm, just like he knew everything that he had ever heard of or seen, but they knew it just as well as he did. He just had to try and outpace them and outsmart them.

No such luck. Noah turned the next corner and came face to face with two large, rather imposing figures in letter jackets and gym shorts. He quickly backed up and turned to go back, but a third pursuer was approaching from the path he just came down, grinning a nefarious grin that Noah really didn't want to understand. Noah made one more turn away from both groups, only to come face-to-face with a wall of lockers, blankly staring back at him.

Noah lost.

"Egg head! I haven't seen you in weeks! How have you been, my man?" the solo pursuer asked pseduo-jovially asked, walking up to his side and wrapping his arm around Noah's shoulder, squeezing and shaking him as if to give a hug.

The comparison between the two of them was almost comical. The pursuer in the letter jacket was tall, even by athletic standards. His speckled blonde hair was cropped short, as to not hide the deep, dark blue eyes that seemed to mesmerize whoever peered into them. A clean shaven, well chiseled jaw seemed to compliment his already muscular, tanned body. Physically, he was the image of perfection in a lot of cases, not a single blemish or imperfection to be found.

Noah, on the other hand, occupied the other end of the spectrum. Standing at around five feet two inches tall, he was on the far shorter side of the scale, and his small frame and size didn't seem to help the image of him being frail and weak. His dark brown hair was sloppily and unevenly cut short, his muddy brown eyes not doing him any favors, and his pale face was marked in a few places with signs of acne. A drastic difference in appearance between the two of them.

Noah looked down to the ground, doing his best to not cause any problems. "I've been fine, Blake." Noah replied shortly, keeping the added _"No thanks to you."_ in his mind rather than verbalizing it.

"What's so interesting on the ground? Didn't anyone ever teach you to look at who you're talking to?" the figure now identified as Blake asked, a tinge of aggressiveness coming into his voice. His free hand went to Noah's throat, clamping down on it and pressing upwards under his chin to force Noah's head to tilt back up.

Looking into those deep blue eyes, swirling like a dark, deadly storm, just waiting for anything remotely close to an excuse to open the floodgates of rage and wash Noah away for good, Noah's mind couldn't help but go blank. Out of all the things that he knew, out of all the things that he remembered, nothing seemed helpful in how he could resolve this situation without getting shoved in a locker.

"S-sorry…" Noah stuttered out through the constricted airway, doing his best not to inflame the situation that was already likely not going to end well for him. Noah tried to look away from the taller guy, but he wasn't having any of that.

"Why are you so disrespectful to me? Can't you see that I'm the one protecting you from all sorts of bad things? I wouldn't want you to get hurt!" came the reply as he shoved Noah forcefully back against the wall of lockers, his hand still clasped around the smaller kid's throat. Noah fought back as best as he could, squirming and kicking in the much larger kid's grasp, his own hands desperately trying to claw off the hand grasped around his throat. Noah could feel his feet leave the ground, the much larger bully picking him up off the ground by his neck, holding him off the ground and making the smaller kid feel much more helpless.

He could feel the hand clamping down harder on his throat. He was losing his ability to breath. He tried to squeak out some kind of plea, a warning that he was getting choked, but nothing came out. His lungs began to burn from the lack of air, his vision becoming foggier and foggier by the second. Any moment now he'd black out and-

The larger kid let go of Noah, dropping him to the ground without a second thought. Noah fell to his knees, coughing and gasping for the air his lungs so desperately craved. "You're not worth my time, egg head. Next time we talk, you should consider having a little more respect." Noah heard being spoken toward his collapsed form before the trio of bullies walked away, leaving him there on the ground.

Noah sat there for a few moments longer, partially to catch his breath and to make sure that he was still one piece, but also to make sure that they weren't going to come back again. After a few minutes of painful silence, Noah stood back up to dust himself off. His throat was still sore from having it crushed, but from what he could tell and feel there weren't any hand marks around his throat. He frowned slightly, shaking his head. It was probably better that way.

Noah began walking down the hallway, toward the exit of the school. At least now he could go home and practice in peace.

* * *

Anthony couldn't believe what he was looking at. Sure, he had considered the possibility that it could happen, but he never actually imagined that it would happen.

"Lemme git this straight. You picked a fight wit' who?" Anthony asked his little brother, lording over him in a mix of rage and protective instinct. Standing at six foot two inches tall, it wasn't very hard to tower over his little brother, but height wasn't the only factor. Anthony's body was broad and very toned with muscle. His hair, cut extremely short, was covered by a backwards-facing ballcap. In a lot of perspectives, Anthony was the picture of health for a twenty-year old African American young adult.

His younger brother looked away from Anthony, apparently preferring to look anywhere else except at Anthony. His dark skin seemed like it wanted to fade entirely into the blackest of shadows and disappear permanently rather than staying at the chocolate brown color that it was currently. Even against the black skin, the black eye still shone like a beacon to his older brother's inquisitive eye.

"W-wit' Big Tony...I didn' mean to! I swears!"

Anthony groaned, rubbing a frustrated hand over his face, trying to figure out what there was to do about the situation. "C'mon J, I told you that theys was bad news. What are you doin' hangin' around that crew anyways? You're barely thirteen!"

His brother looked back up in protest. "Not fair, yo! I'm a teenager, too! I can make my own choices!"

But Anthony wasn't having any of that. He would rather die before seeing his brother get mixed up in the wrong crowd. He'd seen what kind of influence the underground could have on a young, impressionable kid, and he refused to let that happen to his brother. "Yeh, and you can make whatever decision you want _except_ for that one. You're stayin' away from 'em. End of discussion."

His brother didn't look convinced. "But-.."

"No buts. Now let's get home before mama skins _both_ our hides. And for your sake, I hope you have a better explanation for the shiner than hangin' around dope slingers, or you really done for."

* * *

After finishing up a few assignments and working on the paperwork necessary to drop out of his classes and transfer into GED test taking courses, Noah finally found the time to log onto League. There weren't any Ranked 5s games scheduled for today, so it was his time to grind out the solo queue ladder and practice, free of the harassment of his laning partner. That was the last thing he wanted to deal with today, after his incident in the hallways.

His client pinged that he had a message waiting for him.

Rampage: _we shuld duo 2 practice_

Noah sighed to himself. It never just rained…

Anomalii: _Had a rough day today, kind of just want to soloq it right now._

Rampage: _we rly need 2 practice together tho._

Rampage: _perfect way not 2 suck is to practice w/ ur laning partner_

Noah sighed, leaning away from his keyboard, his hands clasped behind his head in thought. Of course he was aware that, if you didn't want to suck in a bot lane, practicing with your laning partner and learning their tendencies and establishing synergy was a great way to improve competitively. Rampage, however, wasn't the easiest person to work with.

Noah snorted to himself - talk about understatement of the year. After a few more moments, Noah sighed once more, leaning back into his keyboard.

Anomalii: _Fine. Skype?_

* * *

"They're probably gonna drag soon, we should refresh the ward line in the river." Anthony's voice sounded over Noah's headset.

Noah nodded in agreement, commanding his champion, Thresh in this particular game, to walk out of the lane to the river area. A ward placed in the river and in the tri-brush to the left of the river gave them adequate vision of the different approaches toward the bottom lane. If a gank were to come in from the enemy jungler, they'd know about it in time to run.

He walked back to the lane in time for the minion wave to start pushing against them, Vayne not being the best wave pushing champion while the other lane, Ashe and Alistar, were far better at pushing the lanes.

They were also a lot better at setting up dives, which explained why they now saw the opposing Gragas walking down the river, aiming for the bot lane.

"They're about to dive us. I have everything up. We can fight it." Noah said quickly through the microphone, sending his champion to hug the base of the tower while he typed out a message in game.

Anomalii: _They're diving bottom. Can collapse._

Their jungler, Rek'Sai, pinged that he was coming down to collapse on the incoming dive just as the sound notification for Ashe's ultimate played, the massive crystal arrow flying across the map toward the bottom lane tower, which the duo stood under. Noah had the time and space to walk towards, avoiding the trajectory of the incoming stun-arrow, but it was flying straight at Anthony's Vayne.

"I'm flashing." Anthony called out as he used his summoner spell, flashing upwards to get out of the way of the arrow. The arrow flew by harmlessly, but now Vayne was pretty far away from the tower and closer to Gragas.

"I have lantern for you if you go too far out." Noah called out as Gragas body-slammed in from the tri-brush, throwing out his explosive cask behind Vayne to knock the champion forward and out from under the tower.

Noah reacted instantly by throwing out the lantern in the area that Vayne would land while simultaneously winding up his hook, throwing it out toward the Alistar to lead him. The predicted headbut toward the Vayne to chain the crowd control came out from the enemy Alistar, and the hook hit the bull, stopping the crowd control. This interruption of crowd control let Vayne grab the lantern, riding it all the way back to the relative safety of under their own tower.

"We can keep fighting." Anthony called out quickly. Noah agreed. They had blown all of their CC and ability to engage, and now they were just sitting dangerously outside the tower.

"I'm engaging." Noah called out, using his flash to flash into the Ashe and Alistar. He used his flay to knock the two of them closer into the tower before using his ultimate, laying down the five-sided box and tagging the duo bot lane with two of the walls, slowing them further.

And Noah couldn't help but be impressed with Anthony's mechanics. As soon as he had flashed forward to engage, the Vayne ultimate and tumble came out immediately, repositioning herself to be able to rip into the exposed Gragas. Anthony condemned the Gragas into the wall, stunning him there while filling him with silver bolts, chunking him of half of his health before the stun even wore off. The flash out from Gragas was almost instantaneous, but that didn't stop Anthony from chasing him down, the bonus movement speed from Vayne's ultimate-buffed passive allowing her to close the distance quickly. With no flash and no bodyslam left up, and no help being able to come up from the rest of his team tangled up with Thresh, Gragas died nearly instantly.

" _An enemy has been slain!"_

Noah, on the other hand, wasn't having as fun of a time. Being the combined focus of the Ashe and the Alistar was proving to be a painful experience. Thresh slapped his exhaust down on the Ashe, cutting the damage coming out of her significantly and started walking back towards the tower for some safety. The safety was merely an illusion, however, as Alister used his ultimate and flashed forward, knocking up Thresh while taking minimal damage from the tower shots raining down on him.

Noah smiled, though - his hook had come off of the cooldown from the first time he threw it. And Vayne, having finished killing off the Gragas, was looping around for seconds of the enemy bot lane. Noah winded his hook, letting it fly and hitting Ashe square on and preventing her from taking any action, giving Vayne the free window to run up to the enemy bot lane from the flank. The squishy attack damage carry didn't stand a chance against the damage output of Vayne, and was the next to fall.

" _Double kill!"_

With two down, and Alistar under tower, with his flash not available and his ultimate fading, was now overextended massively, and was not long for this world. Flay came back up to secure the kill from escaping.

" _Triple kill!"_

Rek'Sai: _well you guys dont need me lol…_

Noah laughed and pinged the dragon that had spawned and was awaiting its death, indicating that he wanted to take it while their jungler and bottom lane were dead and waiting to respawn. Anthony laughed as well over their Skype call. "Good shit, man. Good shit."

That made Noah smile. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad, if they could just work out some of the kinks.


End file.
